Friday, December 25, 2009

Bite You Back!

On a Monday in December I was bitten by a centipede.

Coming from the States, you tend to picture these creatures as benign, sub-rock dwelling critters like salamanders, not the ferocious, thick-bodied nightmares that Thais use to spice their whiskey and whose bites can kill cats. Over breakfast of rice soup with squid, the bastard dropped on my leg from underneath the table, scooted up my bathing suit, and waited patiently for me to notice.

When the Thais saw me yelping, they rushed over, saw the insect dashing from my leg into the brush, and freaked out. I'd seen centipedes only once before, in Australia, where a bush guide had warned they were poisonous--could kill infants, in fact. Watching three guys rush screaming into shrubs after the beast did little to calm me. Though they failed to find the centipede, they did uncover a poisonous black snake, which they beat to death with bamboo sticks.

If you've never been been bitten by a centipede, I'll tell you what it's like: first a sharp sting sets in, the area turns red and swells, burning like a match head. Your loved one asks you to describe the pain on a scale of 1 to 10, and then you become an island celebrity: other tourists drop by to wonder why everyone else is staring at you; someone remembers someone else who got bitten by a spider some years ago, or the time they saw a snake in their bungalow, or a deer they saw on the hill. You struggle to pronounce the Thai word of the animal that got you: mak ue?
No, that's banana. Tak auw.
Tak ow?
No. Tak auwww.

And on and on. Days later, people you'd never seen before are still asking about the leg. The attention starts to wear like the residual pain of the bite, two red puncture wounds that fade day by day, your war story sounding less impressive every time you tell it.

-Mark

Mark and Juliah

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Mark and Juliah in Big Tiger

With one spare day in Bangkok, we woke early to visit foreign inmates at Bangkwang Men's Prison, at the far edge of the city, last stop on the Bangkok commuter ferry. We'd heard conditions at the jail were awful, and the guys there, most of them incarcerated on drug charges, appreciated any kind of visitors and the gifts they might bring. It wasn't out of sense of charity that we went, but a drive to get away from the tour buses and banana pancakes, to do something a little off the beaten path in the city that had become the beaten path, plus a burning curiosity for a glimpse of life in a foreign prison.
The jail was surprisingly easy to find, guards shockingly friendly and obliging, and everything appeared much nicer than I'd expected. The man we'd intended to see, Jody Aggett, had been freed several months prior, and Julie and I were at a bit of a loss. "He go home,"the guard said, but gave us the name of another inmate he recommended we meet. Though we were the only foreigner present, besides a pair of Indian and Sri Lankan missionaries, the prison staff seemed used to dealing with visiting tourists.
Michael Connel had been caught at 19 trying to smuggle ecstacy into Bangkok Airport. He'd been acting independently,thinking he could turn a neat profit off the only drug not available in the Golden Triangle. His Thai lawyer told him not to worry: "'Given your age, and the fact that it was your first offense, I think I can get you off with 30 years,'" Michael related to me. The judge gave him life, with the contingency of a death sentence, should it be recommended by a higher court. I don't support foreigners trafficking drugs abroad, as it cuts into local business, but I can certainly see the screwed up logic of a 19 year-old trying to make some money on his vacation.
"But I'll be out of here in another 6 years," he said. Britain's working on a treaty for prisoner transfers with Thailand. America has a similar one, that allows US nationals to be charged and tried in Bangkok, but to serve their sentences at jails back home. "Once I'm there, I'll probably serve another 6 years, and be paroled." Michael had already served 7 years. He'd had his hair shaved short and looked in good health, wearing his own clothes--an adidas jumpsuit and baseball cap--rather than the standard orange jumpsuit, a privelige for good behavior. His manner was kind, courteous, relaxed, and altogether charming. When I lifted the gift sack of fruits, cookies, chocolates, and toiletries to the viewing window for him to see, he thanked us graciously.
"I'm sorry," I said, "we weren't sure what exactly you needed in there. I hope these things will be useful."
"Have you got any freedom in the bag?" he laughed. "Did you happen to bring any of that with you?"
I had no idea how to respond that.
"To tell you the truth, I'd rather serve out my sentence here than back home. Here, the guards are easy going and will leave you alone, so long as you don't cause trouble. I've got a job with the medical dispensary, and that keeps me busy. If you look around here, you'll see most of the guards sleep half the day. I imagine the British jails will be a lot rougher, full of gangs, with fights breaking out."
I told him I was confused; up til then, I'd been informed of Thai prisons only from reading The Damage Done by Warren Fellows, a memoir of eating rats to survive, of keeping one's head down to avoid sadistic guards.
"What you have to keep in mind is that that book was written 20 years ago,"Michael said. "It's nowhere near as bad as it was then."

Michael is a genuinely nice person. He made a serious mistake at age 19 and certainly deserved to be banned from Thailand, but it's very difficult to see the justice in any teenager being detained for 30 years to life, with the constant promise of a firing squad hanging over his head, then deprived of the chance to attend university or get any sort of professional training. If and when he's released, he'll be a much older, much sorrier person with far fewer resources for supporting himself, and he'll be alone.
Julie and I are asking you to do something kind this holiday: send Michael a postcard, a letter, or even a small care package to let him know people are thinking of him. You can reach him at:

Michael Connel
Bangkwang Central Prison
Building 12
1 Nonthaburi Road
Nonthaburi, Bangkok 11000
Thailand

If you'd like to contact other foreigners at Bangkwang, there's a roster of inmates here. All of them appreciate your support.

Mark and Juliah

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Final Days in Laos

Just enough time to post a quick update on our travels. We were heartbroken to leave Vientiane yesterday. This was my third trip to PDR Laos in 8 years, though at first I felt like a bit of a freak admitting that much to other people. Slowly-slowly, though, we met others who'd been returning to SE Asia's only landlocked nation every other year, or every year, plus people who'd made Luang Prabang and Vientiane their home, and who looked as comfortable as the locals skipping about the cities on motorbikes. I was more than a little envious of them.
It's remarkable how, as a city and a capital, Vientiane has really come into its own. More than once, I got curmudgeony on Juliah, reminding her, "I remember when this city didn't have a single paved road! I remember when there were chickens in the streets everywhere! Now look at this place: cars! pet dogs! cops with shoes!" You can't quantify the level of growth that's occurred here in the last 10 years, since back when the country had a single airport that supported a single daily flight from Bangkok. I'm nostalgic for my first memories of the country, but also thrilled for the Lao people, who are desperately in need of development.
On our second to last day, we took the advice of a boorish Australian who'd hated every place he'd been except a single temple just outside central Vientiane. Wat Si Muang is one of many temples rebuilt after Thailand sacked the country in the mid-1800's. Though Thais and Laos share the same religion, Buddhism didn't stop the Thais from burning wats and wrecking images of the Buddha, just as it didn't prevent the Burmese from wrecking the temples of Ayuthaya prior to that. Inside War Si Muang is the city pillar, laid during the official founding of Vientiane. Underneath this several ton stone, it is believed, is the crushed body of a pregnant woman: a self-sacrifice or human sacrifice that pre-dates current Buddhist practices.
Wat Si Muang is Vientiane's most active temple, not only because it is the city's temple, but because the grounds and images inside are believed to have special powers of protection and blessing. A 20 pound molten Buddha statue, destroyed when the Thai wrecked the city, rests on a pillow in a room just outside the main prayer chamber, where the devout come to pray and the tourists come to take flash photography. The practice is to raise the statue above your head while silently meditating on a personal wish, and to return to the temple later with offerings of wax flowers, bananas, and incense. Inside the main chamber, the room was stacked with elaborate offerings. Outside, a small procession of students, families, and crippled people waited their turn to pray, against the backdrop of monks blessing families, performing baasi ceremonies to bind together spirits to protect the health and souls of the devout.
We're back in Bangkok to meet Julie's sister and enjoy watermelon shakes before heading to Koh Chang, off the southern coast. Pictures will be posted shortly to this page, but in the meantime please check out some of our other photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/markandjuliah/
Best,

Mark and Juliah

Monday, November 30, 2009

Thanksgiving in Laos





Thanksgiving in Laos found us in a cave. I was not sure what the holidays would feel like here, whether they would make us nostalgic or if we would even notice that we were missing them. We were in Muang Ngoi, a small town one hour up the Nam Ou river from Nong Khiaw by boat. Its a small town with a single dusty walking path below lush jagged mountains that stop you in your tracks. Every night groups of people sat by a fire in the middle of the single path. There are no roads. The only way to arrive in Muang Ngoi is by boat or by walking from the next village over. The town has been here since the 15th century, but none of the old temples survived the US bombing.

On Thanksgiving Mark and I walked down a footpath to a soccer field to a series of caves along a shady stream. Locals lived in these caves for years to escape US bombing during the war and farmed at night as bombs only dropped during the day.

We followed the path by the stream out of the woods until it crossed the stream. Women with no shoes carried large bags of rice by a strap across their forehead. We shuffled to get out of their way as they gracefully climbed over a cattle fence and through the stream. The path lead us to a wide plateau of rice fields which were being harvested by men in straw hats.

With some helpful directions from the rice farmers we arrived in the village of Bana and drank ginger tea in a small cafe with a couple from Switzerland. The owner pulled out a bottle of lao lao which is a local whiskey. It was a small water bottle with only a few inches of lao lao left, but he offered each of us a very small shot making the few ounces of hard alcohol last for three rounds for the five of us. Clearly, the sharing was more important than the actual drinking.

We played petang with the owner next to some old bomb parts. After lunch we were invited to drink more lao lao with the rice farmers as we were walking back to Muang Ngoi across the rice field. They already had a young Argentinian man with them in the shade of their baan ( a shelter used for eating and resting next to the rice field) but they happily made room for us. Soon a single glass of lao lao is circulating. I pull out a bag of peanuts and the Argentinian pulls out some bananas to share. Both are well received and soon sticky rice is passed to us. We talk about work, soccer, rice and how cool it is to be a rice farmer.

Soon a Spanish couple made their way towards our shelter. The rice farmer with the best English (who is now red in the face from drinking) stopped the woman and apologized for not inviting them to drink with us- the lao lao has run out. The Spanish woman thanks him and explains that she doesn't like lao lao and is happy that it has run out. They all laughed. After the Spanish couple left we sit for a moment and reflect on this Thanksgiving. Soon it is time for the soccer game back in Muang Ngoi and the rice farmers head back to town.


Pictures:
The vally near Muang Ngoi
The cave
Playing Petang (note the bomb part in the background)
For more pics see our flickr page: markandjuliah

Mark and Juliah

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Adventures on Special K Island



If you look at a map of Indonesia, you will notice a large island in the shape of the letter K in the northeast of the country. This is Sulawesi. We started at the bottom of the left leg and worked our way to the north, transversing that large bay created between the right arm and right leg of the K. My only regret is that we didn't give ourselves more time on this beautiful and friendly island. We met many smart travelers that devoted their entire 3 and 4 week trips to Sulawesi.

When you visit Sulawesi you may go to a fascinating region of Toraja. Here Torajans live in strange boat-shaped houses that face north to remind them that their ancestors came from the north on boats. By day, Torajans farm coffee and rice, and by evening the rhythmic pounding of rice could be mistaken for drums echoing across vast valleys of rice paddies. If you are one of the lucky visitors to Toraja you may get to observe a funeral. Funerals are elaborate parties attended by -literally- truckloads of family and friends and neighbors who descend on villages. Torajans believe that a proper funeral is needed for the deceased to navigate through the various challenges of the afterlife. Torajans believe that their deceased ancestors will have to face many challenges as they travel through the afterlife. A proper funeral is needed support them on their journy.
A crucial element of the funeral is the buffalo sacrifice. Families may save up for two years before they can afford the water buffalos needed for a sacrifice ( the decease

d bodies are kept in the home in the meantime). Once you see one of these large and gentle creatures fall to their knees, blood spurting from the neck, you may feel a sense of relief. That was it; the buffalo sacrifice is over. But no, a good Torajan funeral needs 24 sacrifices. Those other buffalo standing around, obliviously batting their eyelashes- they are next. Lucky you, you get to see 23 more sacrifices.

When you are at a Torajan funeral, you should wear black and bring a case of clove cigarettes as a gift. Another pointer is not to stand too close to the sacrifices. While some sacrifices go well (the animal falls peacfully to the ground), sometimes the buffalo flails and thrashes for sometime before collapsing. You don't want buffalo blood on your one pair of pants.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Slaughtering Buffalo in Tana Toraja


Maud was getting on my nerves. The French girl had been on the bus with us to Rantampao, 10 hours from Makassar in the south. She was friendly enough, but I could sense there was something off about her. She followed us to a budget hotel and had been the one to tell us about the chance to observe a funeral ceremony that same morning, but when we met with Johnny, the guide, to arrange a tour the following day, she'd whispered conspiratorially, "You leave the negotiating to me."
"That Austrian couple you took today was on a honeymoon, and they had a lot of money to spend, but we're backpackers, and we're traveling for a long time, so you have to give us a good price, okay!" Her tone took us off guard; I think we'd expected her to be aggressive, but not belligerent. Haggling comes with the territory of budget travel, but getting in people's faces, shouting, and wrecking relationships for the sake of $5 usually makes us squeamish.
Johnny thought for awhile, wrote out his expenses on paper. He was a local, but as a Christian convert, had followed the tradition of taking a western name. He listed his costs, stated what he needed to make, and came down to about $50, from the $90 he'd charged the Austrians earlier that day.
"No, I said you have to give us a good price!" Maud yelled. "That's not a good price!"
The two of them bickered back and forth, he more politely than she, but he refused to budge from 450,000 Rupiah. Maud turned him down, then went back later that night to track him down and book his services. The next morning, when he met us for breakfast, she was still whining and badgering him about a discount.
Our tour turned out to be pretty fun. Torajans are fixated with death and the afterlife, and we visited sites where bodies had been interred in caves, a living tree where the corpses of infants where inserted into crevices and twists to grow into a part of the trunk, and saw life-sized tau-tau carvings, wooden effigies of the dead, which somewhat resemble muppets. In the last cave, dessicated skulls where gathered in piles on the floor and jammed into crannies. Above them were tau-taus looking out.
After visiting three sites, Johnny took us to a funeral celebration 30 minutes away by car. Maud slept in the front seat as we passed scenery of rice terraces and traditional villages.
Funeral celebrations in Tana Toraja are gorgeous and complicated events that last for days. The following is a mix of what we observed, plus some explanation provided later by our trek guide. In the center of a traditional village, the teardrop shaped coffin is placed on a palanquin resembling a Torajan house and marched from one end of town to the other, to the accompaniment of a parade of uncut cloth, beating gongs, and what can only be described as war-whoops. Torajan homes uniformly have 3 rooms, are shaped like ships, and face north, to remind the inhabitants that their ancestors were sailors who arrived from boat from the south. While the coffin is carried, the whole of the village follows, carrying an uncut length of white cloth, empty spirit chairs over their heads, leading water buffalo by the nose, and, shaking the palanquin.
They return to the village center, move the coffin to a special platform, serve lunch to all guests and say a special prayer before sacrificing two buffalo.
Tea and cookies are served as the men in the village get down to the grizzly business of flaying and butchering the animals. Dogs circle, flies hover, and choice cuts of buffalo are auctioned off to raise money for the local church. When this is finished, several buffalo are led down to the rice paddies to fight. We thought this would be inhumane and awful to watch, but the buffalo turn out to be fairly stupid, aggressive, and cowardly animals that will lock horns a few minutes if they just see another male in their direct line of vision, then turn tails and run away if they think they're outmatched.
Torajan cosmology holds that death is the start of a journey to the afterworld, but that journey cannot begin until a proper funeral has taken place. Often, families will spend 6 to 24 months saving for a ceremony after a member has died. During that time, the dead person is kept in the home, served regular meals, given cigarettes and betel nuts, and addressed by others as a living person.
The funeral marks the start of the deceased's journey to the next world. It's a long, difficult, and perilous trip over mountains and through deep caves. When the deceased arrives at their destination, they meet a judging god who examines their life and assigns them status in the afterworld. Someone deemed worthy and virtuous can be made a demi-god, and can go on to influence the destinies of their descendants.
A good funeral helps the trip and transition. It can give the spirit a head start on the journey, and make the dead look good in the eyes of the god. Women gather together and pound rice in large mortars during the funeral, to give the appearance to deities listening that the deceased was an important person with servants. Water buffalo, usually 26 to 100 of them, are sacrificed over the course of the day. They carry the dead and their belongings into the next world, and the quality and breed of the buffalo make a tremendous difference: two-toned buffalo are extra valuable, because the black color allows the animal to walk on land, and the white allows it to fly; a buffalo with a patch of white on its forehead will cast light in the darkness of a cave; for reasons unexplained to Julie and me, it's better if the buffalo has a long tail.
In the public markets, these buffalo sell for up to a few thousand dollars each.
I wasn't quite prepared for the slaughter of these animals, but Johnny was very excited for us to come and witness. We watched from a peanut gallery as a short stick attached to a ring in the animal's nose was raised high, forcing the buffalo's head up. Someone would dash in with a machete and, using a forearm swing, cut the animal's throat, wide and deep. The bull would fall down, make snuffling noises, kick its feet a few times, and the eyes would glaze over just as flies began gathering near the bright pools of blood. The other 25 buffalo, meanwhile, stand around the body of their companion, dumb and unfazed, chewing grass, probably thinking, "Well, it won't happen to me."
Johnny returned us to our hotel that evening, the Wisma Maria I, and we spent the night trying to avoid Maud while listening to our neighbor's cancerous hoiking and spitting. Everyone smokes here. No one considers it dangerous, and everyone in Sulawesi will tell you the same thing: It's a sign of friendship to give and share cigarettes, usually a sweet and aromatic blend of tobacco and cloves. On the hill trek the next day, Julie and I spotted a four year-old hanging out under the village rice barn, taking French inhales from a discarded, burning butt.
The trek was incredible, by the way. Photos on Flickr will do a better job illustrating the scenery than I can here: steep, emerald green, rice farming terraces; friendly families offering tea when we stopped to rest; village chiefs stuffing coffins into caves hewn from massive boulders and outcroppings, and spending the night in one of the traditional, boat-shaped homes. Everywhere, the mountains were dotted with fleets of these houses, all pointing north.

Mark and Juliah

Sunday, October 18, 2009


Indonesia- so far
So diverse and overwhelming are these 17,000 plus islands that you have to really choose where you go. So diverse and overwhelming are my experiences here that I must choose what I comment on.



Everyday everything needs prayer

Everything here needs offerings- cars, trees, doorways, sculptures, computers, desks and ticket counters all have little palm trays full of rice, flower petals, incense, cake and sometimes ritz crackers. Some days, the gods get bananas, other days mints. Our cab driver tells us that he puts 70 in his home every day. The air smells indescribably smokey and sweet. Homes are so elborate and oriented around religion that in Ubud, we don't know what is a home and what is a temple. The courtyard complexes that are homes, have elaborate shrines and sculptures. Twice a day our landlady puts on her good sarong and scarf and blesses her home, sprinkling water, and praying all over the courtyard before leaving the small offering baskets and banana leaves with bits of rice for the sculptures. Then she makes us breakfast- a thermos of tea, a plate of fruit and a grilled egg sandwich, which she delivers to our balcony when we wake up.


Diving requires suspension of Rational Belief
After a year or two of not diving, the Gili islands seem like a good a place as any to plunge back in. As the dive boat approaches the site, i feel the most amazing sense of panic overtaking me. I tell the Indonesian dive leader, Ronny, that I am nervous. I am told this is a good way to stop being nervous. He says no problem. He will keep an eye on me. Okay now I feel a bit better. We dive roll off the side and meet at the front of the boat. After all the regular technical checks we are ready to begin our decent.

When I get underwater I see that the ocean floor is sixty feet below me. Below me is certain death. I feel my throat seize up. This is how it ends. Dark, wet, airless, blue death. This is it. I begin to hyperventilate. I signal to Ronny that i need to return to the surface. He follows me back to to the surface.

"Whats wrong?" He asks me when we are back in the sun and the rolling waves as if I was not about to die. "I can't do this. Its too deep and I am going to die." I tell him. "No, no, its okay. you just have to breath like you normally do. In and out, you know, in and out." Oh yes, that. I try breathing. Okay it works. "Do you want to try again?" He asks me. Yes, i say because yes is the polite answer and he is so nice and slightly charming. The real answer is no. No, I would rather pull my still-living self back onto the boat and reflect on how nice it is to be alive. But I said yes, and now holding Ronny's little Indonesian hand we are descending again. I am not normally a hand holder but diving requires a certain suspense of all rational belief. I hum and look for fish until finally we are at the bottom.

When we get to the bottom, I am fine. Fish, corral, spongy little things- All my old underwater buddies are here and the surface is way above our heads. I give Ronny the "okay" sign and we swim to catch up to the group.

"We make people fly" - Lion Air slogan
Its our first domestic flight within Indonesia and we are already noticing new things.
1. Throughout the entire check-in and boarding process, no one has wanted to see my ID. This is more eerie than not taking off your shoes in security.
2. They burn incense in the airport here. all over the place. I can imagine how well that would go over at Dallas/Fort Worth
3. On the plane, in the seat pocket in front of me, I find a laminated three fold "Invocation Card" which leads us through safety prayers for Muslims, Protestants, Catholics, Hindus and Buddhists. Most compelling, Mark and I agree, is the Muslim prayer which thanks Allah who "has bestowed upon us the will and ability to use this aircraft." For the day we spent trying to get to the airport today, we are grateful to have arrived. I am also grateful for Lion Air. Apart from making people fly, they encourage people to pray for our safety however we choose.
4. The airline has given us the emergency exit. The extra leg room makes 6' 3" Mark very happy as we have yet to live a day in this country where he doesn't hit his head on something. Thank god(s)

Juliah

Photos-
Temple in Ubud, Bali
Rice offering left on the doorway to our hotel
Man on ferry headed to Gili Meno, an island off of the Island of Lombok

for more pics, see our flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/markandjuliah/

Mark and Juliah

Hello! Where Are You Going?

On the streets of Makassar, we're followed by share taxi and bicycle rickshaw touts. None of them follow very far, but there always seems to be another where the last one left. All of them want to know the same thing: "Hello! Where are you going?" Occasionally, one will ask "Where do you stay?" Everyone seems a little desperate for business around here; between the global economic bellyflop and lingering fears of angry Muslim men, it feels like most of the world's share of tourism has sidestepped the archipelago for safer, nearer destinations. They don't know what they're missing!

Indonesia is an enormous and beautiful place. You couldn't see half of it if you had a billion-year visa and five lifetimes to live here. 17,000 islands cover a range of volcanic mountains, arid beaches, and rainforest. Moving from island to island, you find communities of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians, none of them neglected by the regional airline's multi-denominational prayer card, which thanks Allah for giving men the "knowledge to build these airplanes and the will to fly them."

We landed here October 7th, following 24+ plus hours of travel from Seoul, which included an 18 hour layover in Bangkok. In Thailand, we had just enough time to shuttle in to Bangkok's Khao San Road tourist ghetto for a plate of green curry and a massage, then back to the airport to slum on the floor and wait for our 6am flight to Bali. We arrived in Ubud filthy with the grime of Korean mosquito stuck to our palms, tropical heat under our shirts.

Making your way here is easy, if you don't mind taking the long roads. It gets cheaper if you can hop in bemos, share taxis that charge about 5 cents a mile. This was how we made our way across the prefectural island of Lombok to the smaller islands in the north: Gili Trawangan, Gili Air, and Gili Meno. You arrive dusty, sweaty and cramped. The reward is a destination without roads, cars, or electricity, and a week's worth of banana pancake breakfasts.

Without getting into too much detail, I'm posting our intended itinerary for the next two weeks:

Currently in Tana Toraja, Sulawesi. Imagine a giant floating letter "K" in the middle of the ocean, its top vertical bit twisted and extended a bit to the right.
Heading north tomorrow Tentene or the port city of Poso, then on to Ampana to catch a boat to the Togean Islands
From the Togeans, it's another 15 hour boat ride to the northern port of Garontolo, then continuing northeast to Manado, where we catch a flight back to Bali and chill for a week in Candidasa.

There are over 50 islands within the Togean archipelago, part of the larger archipelago that comprises Indonesia. Send us a worthy recommendation for one of these islands--even better, a comfortable guesthouse--and receive a grateful postcard from the both of us.

Mark and Juliah

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Korea, where have you been all my life?

Seoul-
If you like clear English signs and frequent public restrooms, its hard to go wrong in this city. Friendly and strange and 6,000 miles away.

People here love to take pictures. Families and couples snap pictures on all sorts of digital devices all day long. Korean children may be the most documented children on the planet. We went on a ferry ride down the river. What seemed to be a scenic boat tour, turned into a photo shoot for a hundred Korean families and another 80 young couples. Since Koreans love to take pictures, they don't seem to mind at all when you take pictures either. Taking pictures transcends the language barrier. The Koreans are doing the same thing we are and thats nice in a way.

I have eaten so many interesting things, but unfortunately I have no idea what most of them are. One day we ate at the fish market. We sat down on the floor and agreed with the waitress that the sashimi special was for us. After we ordered, we realized that we both miscalculated the price of the meal by a factor of ten. we had no choice but to smile and see what came next.

Even more impressive than Korean food is how restaurants are set up. There is no asking for water, napkins, an extra spoon after you have dropped yours on the ground. In Korea, its all there on the table. No more flagging someone down to refill your water glass, you just fill it from the jug on the table. What else is on the table? A button that calls your waiter! Just in case you need something important like . . .food or more So ju. So ju (which is a deceptively smooth vodka like liquor) is drank everywhere. It cheaper than beer which makes it a natural choice for people here what seems like all the time.

We had three days in Seoul on our way to Indonesia. The time went to quickly. Just as we were learning the metro and making drinking friends over lunch, it was time to go. You have never seen two people who were sadder to go to Bali!

Mark and Juliah

Sunday, September 27, 2009

My Mother Called to Say Indonesia Had Been Destroyed

Anything that can go wrong, might.

This philosphy guides the final days of preparation before selling your things, leaving your home, leaving your family, and living in small hostels on the other side of the world. That mole might be tumorous. The money you'd plan to live on isn't enough to get you through. The country you're visiting has been wrecked by a tsunami, your guesthouse washed away. The reasons to fear and postpone your plans grow, then multiply exponentially in the last 36 hours before you leave home, friends, and comfort.

The night before we left for SFO, I tore apart my backpack and triple counted the clothes, travel medicines, and adaptors we'd packed for the trip. I called the banks and checked that the money was still accessible. I bit my nails and wrote up checklists, crossed things off, then made them longer.

Now that we're here, Julie and I have to weed through our rucksacks and throw things out with a critical eye for weight and volume. First on the hit list: my denim jeans, the sixth bottle of sunscreen, the fourth pair of underwear, the second bottle of contact lens fluid. Beat with jet lag, I sat at the edge of the hostel bed, our things splayed on the floor, and severed the back cover of Juliah's journal with a leatherman. Twenty four hours into our journey, and we're still working through preparation anxiety.

But slowly, we're getting into the vibe of being here, seeing Seoul, getting lost in the crowds. Speaking Korean feels like chewing on taffy when you try asking directions to Gwandaemon. When people get you, they nod once and say "Nehhhhhhh...." By the hour, you start to feel like you really can navigate these streets, get the hotel room, or find the park by the river. Maybe tomorrow, we'll even get around to trying a cup of the boiled silkwork larvae.

Mark and Juliah

Thursday, September 17, 2009

California. California.



So we left Queens. It was sad and touching and really wonderful to get to spend some time with people before we left. Our plan was to stay here in California with my (Juliah) parents for six weeks, have a proper wedding and then leave on THE TRIP.

Even through our relaxing interlude, you can feel a deeper strain happening in the state of California. In August the state of California had a garage sale in Sacramento to raise funds by selling off cars, equipment and furniture. The very same day, the city of San Francisco held a benefit concert for itself, like one might for rare and debilitating genetic conditions or animals on the brink of extinction. Go San Francisco! Go California! It is nice to see government doing what they need to pay the bills. But what about coordination between the state and local government? What if I wanted to go to the garage sale AND the all day concert- did they have to plan the two events for the same date? Surely there is an intergovernmental committee that works these things out.

We shipped our belongings by truck from Queens. It was genius. Trucking companies with room to spare in their trucks can rent the extra space out to folks like us who want to move some stuff but really don’t need a 28 foot truck of their own. This also allows regular folks like us the opportunity to spend some time with truckers and trucks.

The good folks from Craig’s list took care of most of our larger items (Again it was nice meeting you all. Please let me know if the clock on the coffee maker continues to allude you- I can walk you through it again.) so we didn’t have much to bring. We packed our truck on a hot day in August in Queens then got on a plane. Ten days later our belongings were here in Kentfield after the truck made a shipment to San Quentin and another shipment to Trader Joes. With the help of the friendly California driver, we unpacked the truck quickly directly the street to block the street for the shortest amount of time.

The boxes, bags and random items we dropped on to the street in front of my parents house all said we were adults who had real adult lives in a far away (and now abstract) place called Queens. On the street were things like mixing bowls and a blender, personal files and rugs and work cloths, damn it. These adult possessions make no sense here on the street in front of my parents house. Here we are adult children in transition.

No matter. If I have learned anything this summer, it is how to let go of things you are not sure you are ready to let go of. You stop thinking about it and take a deep breath and put one foot in front of the other. Sing a song under your breath if you think it will help. Make sure that the song is upbeat in nature and something you can walk away to well.

Now we have 17 days until THE TRIP. Mark asked me if I was mentally ready for THE TRIP. I laughed in his face. Our trip now puts us back in the US August 18th, 2010- ten and a half months from now. It certainly hasn't hit me that I am actually planning to spend almost a year in two pairs of pants and three pairs of underwear. How could I possibly wrap my mind around that? I mean really.


photos:
1.Flag in downtown San Francisco
2.Finally a yacht that I can identify with right now
3. Mark and I at Six Flags






Mark and Juliah

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Our Days Are Numbered


It’s finally summer in New York City. It’s hot and sunny and I am almost ready to suggest we pull the air conditioner out from under the bed. Now that Mark and I have quit our jobs, we have a month to enjoy New York before leaving for California in August. After our wedding, we will prepare for our trip. The trip.


About this trip: This trip has been quietly planning itself in the back of our minds since we returned from West Africa in fall of 2006. It was an amazing 7 weeks full of markets that smelled of smoked fish, voodoo priests who offered us grain alcohol from feather-covered bottles, scary moped rides through dense French-speaking cities, wild elephants swimming in muddy watering holes, large cement mosques with scratchy loudspeakers, bright, custom-tailored clothing that we loved but never wore when we returned home. We arrived back in our apartment in Queens at midnight. We sat silently on our couch in our apartment that the subletters had finished cleaning just hours before until Mark broke the silence. “We have to do that again,” he said. I nodded.

Since then, the map in our hallway has been covered with many different pushpins identifying potential destinations. Our building super Fernando will wonder if we were playing darts on that wall when he comes to repaint the apartment. After months of evening conversations that start with the lines like: ‘You know, I was talking to this guy from Senegal” or “I had some other thoughts about South Korea today” we have a rough outline of our trip.


Our trip starts in October with a few days in Seoul, South Korea, before heading to Bali, where we start our exploration of Indonesia. In November, we head back north to Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, where we plan to spend two months before heading to India in January. From India we will head west through the Middle East. Possible stop offs include Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. From Egypt we fly to Kenya and then return through Europe in spring or summer 2010.


While I hope to learn and experience a lot of large and wonderful things in the next year, there are some little things that I am also excited about:

  • Really large insects (and maybe poking at them with sticks—but gently)
  • Hotel room with outdoor bathrooms (sitting on a toilet and looking up at the clouds is the best)
  • Having to think about what day of the week it is
  • Riding a camel
  • Riding an elephant
  • Riding a river dolphin. But I’ll settle for seeing a river dolphin.
  • Eating meals on banana leaves
  • Observing fishing communities
  • Deciding that morning to sleep somewhere else that night
  • Learning some new tricks in the kitchen
  • Strange new fruits
  • Playing the “what bit me now?” game
  • Getting really good at washing clothes in a sink